"Card Activated, Moloch Form!"
"What?!" When Baal heard the name, he quickly tried to stab the cotton toy but little did he realise Moloch's soul had already transitioned into Jin's body. A wave of light emerged from the System Driver, which indicated that it was going to transform once more.
"I will not allow you to complete it!" Baal declared as he dashed towards Jin, but the Hell Knight King was being parried.
"Heh. Your flames…they hurt you know." Jin said as he held onto the large sword in his hands. Even though Gaeru had left, he had allowed Jin to hold onto Masamune for a while longer.
"One of the many debts had been repaid to my Master," Gaeru said as he remembered Jin bestowing him his sword for the fight against the Valgs.
"Masamune, you are annoyed that you didn't even have a taste of this delicious creature, right?" Jin asked as he could feel the shifting of living armour is near to completion despite still being engulfed in dark flames. The sword howled a little as if he acknowledged the temporary wielder and at the opponent who was denying him the chance to feed.
"You insolent fool!" King Baal pushed his sword further and used the impact to retract his sword up so that he could go for another strike.
"I do not usually like to do this but!" Jin strenuously opened his eyes, allowing his Inverse Eyes to activate. "Zeru!" Jin shouted out in his mind and only then did the System realise the loophole that Jin seemingly discovered.
As the living armour plates were shifting, it was actually Moloch attempting to acclimate to Jin's Astral Body before he could take over Jin's body. But what Jin did was to call upon Zeru to fuse with his soul for a split second before Moloch took it over completely.
Jin's sensei did not hesitate, knowing that time itself was both the strictest and opportunistic in nature. If humans can dissect time further, Zeru basically zoomed into the most crucial moment and delivered a cut towards the weakest point of Baal's armour.
The strike that was seemingly faster than the speed of light caused the demon's armour pierced and King to bleed. The Sword Saint immediately left with a wide satisfied smile and at the same time hoped he did not cause even more damage to Jin's body and soul.
"What?!" Baal did not even see that split second strike and Masamune was already howling with excitement since it finally tasted the blood of a demon infused with the energy from Hell and the wretched crown.
"Ah shit, I forgot the crown was on him. Ah whatever, Moloch, the stage is yours. Try to live as long as possible." Jin said as he felt his consciousness damped after Zeru's forceful takeover, rescinding to the back.
As the plates formed correctly, Moloch stood there, finally feeling the flames which burnt his master's life bit by bit away. Thanks to his own demon attribute, he had some fire resistance attribute enhanced onto the black and red living armour plates, but it was not enough to counter the dark flames from Baal.
"Ani! Ototo! At my behest! Come!" Moloch shouted, and suddenly two coloured pauldron plates came flying from the System Driver and attached themselves to Moloch's existing shoulder armour. After learning that Pei had managed to recruit them, he was dying to try out this combination, and he was delighted when it worked out as perfectly as he imagined it to. The Living Armour proceeded to cover them and swiftly, the flames were dying out from their appearance.
"MILORD! THAT HURTS YOU KNOW!"
"i cannot deny and only concur that my brother is right. that really hurts. please hurry with whatever you want to do as we won't be able to endure this for long."
"At the very least, you two stopped it." Moloch praised the Pauldrons as he swung the berserk sword a little, noticing that it became heavier and oppressive than Jin's body was aware of. As the other two monsters were considered as 'leeching parasitic' armour, it fused with Jin nicely. His body armour also did feel very comfortable to be in. (Also, the plate armour on the System Rider was so stylish that Moloch was proud and envied Jin for having such a fantastic device with him.)
"WE CAN ONLY DO IT ONCE! HURRY!" Ototo reminded Moloch where he was, and the Minotaur Lord nervously chuckled. The two brothers had been part of his bodyguard entourage, and they were famous for their combination technique that could create an anti-magic field to remove any spell no matter how strong it was.
This technique was also the reason why the Minotaur brothers had been feared and later on why they were permanently polymorphed by King Baal previously.
King Baal did not know whether the human had discovered the weakness of his armour or if it was just a desperate but very lucky strike. But one thing was for sure, no more mistakes could be allowed especially against Moloch who had now seemingly fused with the human.
"You are not even a sword user, to begin with!" Baal shouted as his bastard sword was burning with flames, and as Moloch clashed against the Hell Knight King, he felt the weight of the impact from the bastard sword. It was intense enough to cause the ground to crack from every blow and gave way to the rider's boots. Not only that, the enchanted flames instantly burnt him.
Even though Ani and Ototo were covering his flaw of being incompetent with swords by simultaneously controlling his arms, they did not expect such overwhelming odds from Baal himself. Moloch also believed that if it was a normal high grade sword, it should have broken or at least got chipped long ago, allowing Baal to slice him into two despite being armoured.
"Hard work eh, Masamune?" Moloch asked as he started chanting and cards subsequently appeared behind Baal. Yet the Hell Knight King was not oblivious about his former advisor's way of fighting and swung his free hand around to shoot at the cards.
"Too bad, I have decades of magical power imbued into this crown. You do not have a chance at all Moloch. Just lose this place to me, and your death will be swift!" Baal ordered.
"Heh, to think you would show me mercy after what we had revealed between each other? Is it on the account that we used to be friends in Hell? Or are you just desperately in need of returning back home?!" Moloch then shouted a magical word and those cards that had seemingly been burnt by Baal's magic swiftly reappeared and flew towards the wound he had incurred from Jin previously.
Upon impact, it exploded, again and again, using his own magic against him. King Baal had no choice but to move backwards and tried to reorganise his thoughts from the sudden attack. "You are not the only one to have picked up a few new tricks, 'old friend'!" Moloch taunted as he tried to remain afoot after the immense pressure and burns he received from Baal.
Those cards were actually absorption cards meant to take in the enemy's magic and deflect them whenever at will. However, Baal's infected hell magic was too strong to contain for long despite the strengthening of the cards via Maqi. And thus System Rider Moloch quickly took the opportunity to hit Baal's weak spot.
For the second time, he was bleeding visibly, and Masamune cried louder than ever. Without any permission, it slipped out of Moloch's hand and went straight for the wound. "Shit! I think it is addicted to the crown's energy!" Moloch thought, but there was no way he could stop an insane sword from moving its own.
"Impudent for a sword to have a will of its own!" Baal shouted as he wanted to deflect the sword away, but in a split moment, the blunt sword managed to cut through his bastard sword and stab him through the side of the waist where the most profound bleeding was.
"What!" Moloch could not help but feel aghast at the situation. Did King Baal lose to a living hungry sword? Masamune continued to stick on him, refusing to move at all.
"Weird, this is the first time I see Masamune look so worked up," Gaeru informed him through the System Channel as he was not able to teleport into the sacred arena. Moloch grinned for a moment before he conjured a card up with a broad axe picture in it.
"Impossible! How is this sword taking my powers away?!" King Baal raged as he tried to pull Masamune out of his body. He even self immolated, hoping the sword would burn in the thousands degrees heat.
Still, the sword was not budging a single bit continuing its feast.
With Baal distracted, Moloch proceeded to move towards the Hell Knight King with his axe, Armads, the Axe of Hell's Thunder. Unfortunately, it was not real as the axe was conjured similar to what he had possessed in Hell with the aid of Bam and Boo. The authentic relic was still kept within the Hell Plane, and thus Moloch could only settle for this. Without the System's aid and Living Armour, the Minotaur Lord might not have been able to create this.
"If you want to have my blood, then allow me to command you!" Baal shouted as he conjured even more strength out from the crown and placed it on the hilt. To Moloch's surprise, the sword compiled to its hunger for more power as it allowed Baal to draw it out of his wound and defend the miraculous thunder strike from Moloch's replica weapon.
Baal laughed as he saw how easily the sword changed owners and defended him. At the same time, he used the time to close the side deep wound he incurred from the sword. Moloch had no chance to win against the power-hungry sword, and Gaeru became extremely quiet throughout the change of owners.
"This is really an unexpected turn of events." Jin had regained some consciousness from the short little rest he got. "I honestly can not keep up with who betrayed who at this rate."
"Ha Ha. Very funny master. At this rate, we are the ones who are going to lose!" Moloch reminded Jin as he held tightly on Armads. King Baal realised how much of an advantage he had right now. With his new sword, wretched crown and the infused three form he had embraced to take advantage of all the traits of his crossbreed nature, he felt all powerful.
"There is a brilliant sword. I will finish you once and for all!" King Baal announced as he dashed forward and with the power hungry Masamune, he fed even more energy to it and saw the blade itself shimmer with bluish heat.
He had never seen such a high concentration of energy being stored in the blade as if this was the perfect blade for him bestowed to him. "Begone! and thank you for the sword!" King Baal shouted as he burst dash, closing the distance between System Rider Moloch and him.
Moloch saw the incoming attack and knew there was no way it was able to defend it. "Sorry Master, you'll have to continue this fight yourself… Disengage!" The Minotaur Lord shouted as his half mask popped out of the System Rider Helmet and a manifestation of his cotton toy appeared along with the Minotaur half mask.
"Break Polymorph!" Moloch shouted as he already had a card at his side. King Baal's so-called permanent polymorph was something Moloch had already broken in the early days when he was exiled, but he never used it, as it was a way to conserve energy for himself too. He knew one day, he had to fight against Baal and his ridiculous amount of magic preserved in that crown.
However, he did not know that he was going to use it as defence rather than offence.
"MILORD!" Ototo shouted and immediately disengaged himself from the System Rider. Ani also knew that this was the time to serve his lord. Moloch grew from the cotton toy he was trapped in into a bona fide minotaur. Both Ototo and Ani instantly appeared in front of Moloch, not as pauldrons but two red and yellow tower shields.
Despite their staunchest defence, Masamune cut the two of them easily, but it gave Moloch enough time to accumulate his strength as he held his clasped hands and slammed it forward. Baal smirked as he knew that the attack would be useless with his brand new sword. True enough, Masamune sliced Moloch's arms cleanly, but the Minotaur Lord was not done.
In fact, the arm slam was a feint for his real attack coming from his bull charge via his horns. Bustling his muscles with thunder, he slammed Baal right in the chest and lightning struck his metal plates. Unknown to Moloch, Slydra who was bored conquering the floating islands with her zaps of thunder, had felt the sensation of a lightning user.
"Playing cheat does feel good once in a while." Slydra and Ayse grinned as they were to ones to secretly support Moloch, increasing the strength of this thunder strike by three-fold. Baal was none the wiser and received a blow strong enough to cause him to be knocked back.
Moloch, on the other hand, realised that Masamune was stuck in his heart.
"…This greedy sword. I am taking you with me so you will not interfere." Moloch coughed as he magically took a card out and entrapped the bloodthirsty sword inside it. But before he could pick the card up from the ground, he started to turn into fragment pieces from the overuse of his magic. "This should atone for my mistake of handing it over, Master."
In the meantime, Jin got hold of his body, and the living armour plates shifted back to Panda form. There was no time to feel lost despite Moloch's sacrifice. It was important to press on though Jin's legs were not moving. The System also indicated that the living armour most likely could only hold one last transformation before the System Driver ran out of juice.
"Can't we just feed more black sludge crystals?" Jin barely held together his form and realised he too was at his limit. "We have to stall him as long as possible so the others could take hold of the dungeon keys."
"Negative. Unfortunately, the System Driver is near its breaking point. It is still a prototype and not some indestructible device. Excess usage will cause the device to disintegrate. Not to mention the toll on User has already surpassed the worst-case scenarios. Once this is done, you will have to rest until your vitals are checked, and we can be sure no long term damage has occurred."
"I cannot believe this fight dragged so long." Baal placed his left feet proper to stand up, but he realised the strain from using the crown was starting to get too much. Suddenly, the wretched crown started to light up, and Kiva's family jewel vibrated.
"Shit, no!" Baal didn't know that the invasion had been so long that it was a new day for the demons. As for Baal, he had to go through a 'sanity check' by the crown, and he knew he was in no condition to survive it. His mental will and physical body were severely beaten since he had been relying on the crown's energy to regenerate.
As if the crown was waiting for this chance, it took the opportunity to consume Baal in his latest form, and his entire brain suddenly blacked out.
"Warning, a sudden surge of energy arising from King Baal." The System noted, and Jin saw that the crown shone a purplish light that made him feel like he had seen the face of true evil for the first time. The metal crown subsequently merged with the helmet as it tightened its grip over Baal's head and his body stiffened.
Suddenly, his legs changed shape, and stuff suddenly grew out of the armour greaves and boots Baal was wearing. Three Spider Legs emerged from the original pair of legs, and his hands morphed into webbed hands along with the armour. Not to mention those hands had cat claws emerging from them. Baal's armour slowly popped cat, human and frog eyes surrounding the entire armour.
The worse of all, the crown was emanating cries, weeps, and even screams. Those pleas of help got into Jin's head and he too felt his mind became heavier. It felt like …the victims who King Baal had taken his energy from was asking for mercy. They were shouting desperately to be out of the crown and that itself was trying to take over the Hell Knight King.
"What is happening to me?!" Three slightly various shouts came out from his mouth simultaneously, and the helmet grew a mouth as if it merged with the human face Baal once had. Teeth were shown out when he shouted, and double drooling frog tongues were seen hanging out. As if it was not scary enough of an appearance, his entire armour had been imprinted with scared faces from the people entrapped within the jewel.
"It seems that the crown had infected him further, causing him to mutate beyond recognition. Truly a monster." Jin gave his interpretation as he could feel the wretched crown energy overflowing out. "Is there a Bellator Peppers card that I can draw from the deck?" Jin asked the System, trying his luck.
"Negative. Moloch did not have the power to draw it. The System too believed it is too dangerous for Jin's current grade. The current infusion via the Astral Body is the only way." The System said, and Jin shook his head slightly.
"Well, yeah. Just asking. In any case, there is no way eight seconds of Pepper's explosion could work on this guy without it taking me out as well in this relatively small arena." Jin said.
"8.5 seconds as User is currently at Grade 8 Peak. Still, System also predict that is insufficient-"
"I know, idiot!" Jin said as he stepped forward as he called out Bam and Boo which were in a way damaged after Masamune went crazy and broke out from their temporary combination.
"Sorry about that, Bam and Boo. Did not mean to have it broken." Jin apologised as he combined them both together to have one Katana out. It seemed as if he had no way out but to defeat it as the creature in front of him spasmed.
Suddenly spikes in the shape of cat claws came flying from above and beneath the ground, piercing Jin without any notice. There were no portals or anything as if they materialised from thin air. "What the fuck?!"
The spikes pierced through Jin's living armour defences, into his thighs, arms and even torso, causing Jin to cough out blood internally as the impact was great enough for it to happen. There was a spike that was aimed for his head, but somehow Jin managed to evade it partially(whether by luck or innate instinct, causing it to only destroy a portion of the helmet and missing the face entirely. The cat claw spikes suddenly disappeared once it did its job and Jin was left on the ground bleeding.
"Y—ou wait! I– will finish you after I clear your comrades!" The long slurring from Baal made it seem as if he had trouble controlling his own speech, but if the System were to categorise it, it was infused with three different sounds as heard from his previous sentence.
Despite losing the sanity check, Baal was still conscious enough to put his Dungeon Core as a priority. Concerned about losing it, he immediately opened the portal, and the Pandapolis Dungeon Core reluctantly granted Baal the initial deal. Since Jin was still breathing desperately and without intervention was most likely going to die, making it lose either way.
Fortunately, despite the several injuries, Jin still had the legendary inscription from his general storekeeper, Octofussy to keep him alive. Not to mention his body had been tempered, granting him vampiric traits resulting in a boost of vitality without the urge to bite anyone. Baal who was busy keeping his remaining sanity in check, did not notice any of this and only wanted to pass through the gate.
However, instead of him passing through the gate. There were ten figures coming out of it instead. "Woah, what kind of fucking ugly creature is this?" Kraft asked as he was taken aback for a moment before walking with a bloodied sack over his shoulders.
"Eh? Isn't this the System's portal? Why were we teleported to this wasteland?" Kiyu asked as she walked through it while twirling the ring that held the key from the circle of Heresy.
"Kiyu, be careful with the key. You aren't the most graceful of all foxes." Kai pointed out, and Kiyu merely turned her head to stick her tongue at him.
"Is that Jin?!" Pei, who came out, felt the person's aura lying in a pool of blood to be very familiar. She quickly ran to him, ignoring the monster in front of her. The monster felt offended and decided to pierce her, but it suddenly stopped moving as it noticed a strange smell in the air, temporarily making him lose function over his muscles.
"Do not tell me this monster is Baal?" Evon took a step back, as he noticed that the aura it oozed was not delectable a single bit.
"Wow, the wounds on Jin are really terrible. It's kind of a miracle he is surviving." Ixa was quite blunt about their master's current state as the rest of the foxes in their human forms started to surround Jin.
"This is not how I expected my first encounter with our new master to be." Rex sighed as he supported Pei in healing Jin despite his innate healing abilities.
Baal eventually managed to break out of Evon's paralysing drug effect and noticed that each and almost every one of them who came out were holding the keys to his Dungeon Core, except for the one sole key from the circle of Treachery.
"Ew, Baal who the hell gave you this ugly makeover?" Kraft received the confirmation from the System that it was the King itself, corrupted with the energy he had accumulated. "Anyways, here is the head of your kid, Paleman, I believe. I am surprised that despite you trusting him so much, he had no knowledge of bypassing your stupid key system!"
"I still think you should have let me blast the door with my fist, Kraft." Itori complained, but Tsu just shook his head.
"If you did that, you would have more than likely destroyed the Dungeon Core alongside your blast. In that case, all our endeavours would have been pointless!"
"Yeah, it's rather a wasted effort after I found out that the real Circle of Treachery's Guard Supervisor wasn't even present." Rex agreed as he could hear Jin's breathing started to stabilise.
"Is this like the reinforcements?" Jin asked through his broken helmet with a weak muffled voice.
"Nah, not really. Maybe the spectators?" Kraft grinned as he squatted down and whistled at the new suit Jin had donned on. "I believe this was a great suit before it got battered. Yo, System, I hope you plan to let me play around with one of these as well!"
"So, Rex. What are you waiting for? Kill the King so we can get the key…or to have access to the Dungeon Core or whatever." Ixel was getting a little impatient but so was Baal.
He could not believe the individuals in front of him had managed to clear the guard supervisors which no other demons had done in the past few decades. Still, that also meant that they were the perfect specimens to test his new powers after he had been degraded into a monster of power.
"Yeah, Big Brother. This is supposed to be your official comeback. What better way to establish yourself than to claim the juiciest piece of meat of this whole conquest. Speaking of that, once you are done, we can finally eat, drink and celebrate." Kraft said, and he tapped firmly on Rex's shoulder.
"There's still a part 2 of my comeback?" Rex laughed bitterly as he knew Kraft just wanted to get even for the drinking bet they had centuries ago.
"Haha, but still isn't this –" Suddenly a barrage of magic lasers came from Baal's eyes on the armour and Rex had already put up a barrier against it.
"This monster needs to learn some manners." Rex eyed Baal who now opened his mouth, and a beam of wretched purple energy was shot against his barrier.
"Itori, hold your fist! This is my fight!" Rex ordered as he noticed the White Fox was dying for a counterattack when Baal shot into the barrier. Itori quietly obeyed the new Panda Remnant as he walked forward.
"Master Jin…Do you mind if I kill him? I will make short work of him." Rex asked as he saw Baal desperately trying to break the invisible magical barrier that Rex had put up. No matter how much magical energy from the crown was dispensed against Rex's barrier, it was like a fly hitting on a closed glass window.
"Be my guest. We need to finish him off anyways to end the war. Thanks in advance." Jin answered as he was held up by Pei.
"Kiyu, do you want to have the honours of filming him?" Kraft suggested to Rex as he got permission from his new master.
"I am already on it," Kiyu said, equipped with a selfie stick and a GoPro on. Rex merely smiled as the rest of his skulk stood behind watching him.
"Guess I got to do something flashy. How about I show one of the ancient Panda Techniques?" Rex smiled as he went to a stance…and realised the sword he had already been destroyed from killing the fake bosses in the Circle of Treachery.
"Ah…can someone lend me a sword?" Rex asked embarrassingly, and the foxes tried their best to hold their laughter in.
Kraft too looked down in order not to laugh at his brother, then noticed that there was a card with a sword picture on the ground. "Isn't this Masamune? Why is it in Moloch's card?" Kraft thought to himself as he broke the card's spell by inserting his own chi and Masamune popped out of it.
"Ahh…now I understand why." Kraft smiled as he took in all of the oozing chaos energy from Masamune, and allowed it to not go berserk. "Come on Masamune, there is tastier energy than that," Kraft whispered to it as he subsequently called out to his brother.
Rex received the sword that Kraft threw at him, ignoring Baal's constant all out barrages. "This sword…it's a bloodthirsty living weapon?"
"It's one of Jin's minion's prized items. I doubt he will mind you using it and I believe this weapon suits you well since you are still raging from within." Kraft assumed this could be the outlet that Rex needed while keeping control of his powers. "Most importantly, I do not think it will break."
"Haha, I bet that sword will feel satisfied for some time before it gets hungry again," Ixel interjected, and Rex smiled lightly.
"Alright, then. Judging from this monster's attack power, he is most probably Grade 14 Peak or perhaps an inch away from Grade 15. No wonder Master had a lot of problems fighting it when he's only a Grade 8 Peak. Without the strange chaos energy, he should fall between Grade 11 to 13." Rex calmly analysed the situation while pondering which Sword Art he should show based on the monster's grade as he held onto the sword and adjusted his stance once more.
"Epic Sword Art, Fatal Crescent Circle of the Umbral Panda!" Rex said in a calm voice as he zoomed past Baal and Jin could see a faint image of the moon cycle with a Panda rolling within it as the New Moon turned into a crescent and eventually a full moon. It later went back to a new moon once more, completing the moon cycle. With each transition of the moon's holographic image, Baal was slashed multiple times in the shape of said moon period.
Blood spewed everywhere when the Sword Art ended, but at some point, Rex had put up a barrier to prevent any of Baal's stained blood from dirtying his clothes. It was also relief that he did that too since the blood itself was acidic enough to burn the ground when it landed.
The crown Baal wore finally broke from Rex's sword art, and Baal fell from the attack. It was later revealed that the ravenous lord's jewel was hiding the final prison core from within it and it cracked when the crown was undone.
"How the hell can the prison core be sustained outside of its own instance?" Kraft who had some knowledge on the Dungeon Core felt mystified by it.
"Who knows, maybe that is why he is suffering in his own prison cage." Pei offered a plausible explanation as Rex opened the prison core to reveal the last dungeon key.
"At the very least, he should return to normal once the System resurrects him, right?" Rex asked when he returned Masamune back to Kraft. While it was easy to handle, it did not feel right for him to use it. Kraft could only feel for the weapon, knowing that it had to settle for an imperfect master.
Suddenly, the barriers between the sacred arena were lowered, and the Dungeon Core had determined that the initial deal Baal made had been completed. Ten minutes had passed since the opening of the portal, and he had not crossed any swords against Jin. "Wow, this Dungeon Core sure is scheming. It used this time out as a loophole to let the Foxes fight him." Jin thought since he was the only one who knew the whole picture.
"Isn't that great? We do not need a stupid Dungeon Core to run our city! A scheming city means a prosperous one!" Kraft laughed, and the rest only smiled half-heartedly from it.
"Go, all of you, back to the Dungeon Core. Unlock it and take the Demon Metropolis by force. We need to recoup our losses from this fight." Jin told them, and the whole fox skulk agreed to it. With Baal's portal still opened, all of them immediately went in while an area wide announcement was projected throughout the city.
"Owner of Demon Metropolis, King Baal has officially lost the duel. All Demon Horde personnel shall be teleported out of the Pandapolis in ten seconds." The Pandapolis Dungeon Core announced, and the entire Demon Horde who had to fight with their lives could not believe it…except for the spectators at the safe zone who had seen everything first hand. (If they had survived Syldra's electrifying wink spell.)
The monsters under Jin and Pandarens then realised this was the final sprint to kill everything in their path. More demons killed equated to better rewards for the Pandarens while the monsters might potentially be awarded more System points.
The adrenaline was real as the monsters were using their best skills to finish any demons within their vicinity. Some of the Fortress Golems even started to jump out of their posts and squashed some Demons while emptying their clips of ammo. The Wyvern Knights leapt down from their wyverns and fought independently to get double kills. Pandjilla climbed onto the indestructible sky bridge and sent out an astonishing breath of energy, burning rows of demon soldiers to their death. Many more crazy stunts were done to make that remaining ten seconds count.
Meanwhile, when the foxes took the portal, they tried to drag Jin along with them too. While it was tempting for the foxes, especially Kraft, to own an entire city for himself… it was too much of a hassle in the long run. They were free-spirited troublemakers, not city overseers.
However, Pei stopped him adamantly, and Kraft decided to go for the next best alternative.
Moloch.
He was not spared from it as the System teleported the newly resurrected cotton toy right into Kraft's hands.
"Card Activated, Moloch Form!"
"What?!" When Baal heard the name, he quickly tried to stab the cotton toy but little did he realise Moloch's soul had already transitioned into Jin's body. A wave of light emerged from the System Driver, which indicated that it was going to transform once more.
"I will not allow you to complete it!" Baal declared as he dashed towards Jin, but the Hell Knight King was being parried.
"Heh. Your flames…they hurt you know." Jin said as he held onto the large sword in his hands. Even though Gaeru had left, he had allowed Jin to hold onto Masamune for a while longer.
"One of the many debts had been repaid to my Master," Gaeru said as he remembered Jin bestowing him his sword for the fight against the Valgs.
"Masamune, you are annoyed that you didn't even have a taste of this delicious creature, right?" Jin asked as he could feel the shifting of living armour is near to completion despite still being engulfed in dark flames. The sword howled a little as if he acknowledged the temporary wielder and at the opponent who was denying him the chance to feed.
"You insolent fool!" King Baal pushed his sword further and used the impact to retract his sword up so that he could go for another strike.
"I do not usually like to do this but!" Jin strenuously opened his eyes, allowing his Inverse Eyes to activate. "Zeru!" Jin shouted out in his mind and only then did the System realise the loophole that Jin seemingly discovered.
As the living armour plates were shifting, it was actually Moloch attempting to acclimate to Jin's Astral Body before he could take over Jin's body. But what Jin did was to call upon Zeru to fuse with his soul for a split second before Moloch took it over completely.
Jin's sensei did not hesitate, knowing that time itself was both the strictest and opportunistic in nature. If humans can dissect time further, Zeru basically zoomed into the most crucial moment and delivered a cut towards the weakest point of Baal's armour.
The strike that was seemingly faster than the speed of light caused the demon's armour pierced and King to bleed. The Sword Saint immediately left with a wide satisfied smile and at the same time hoped he did not cause even more damage to Jin's body and soul.
"What?!" Baal did not even see that split second strike and Masamune was already howling with excitement since it finally tasted the blood of a demon infused with the energy from Hell and the wretched crown.
"Ah shit, I forgot the crown was on him. Ah whatever, Moloch, the stage is yours. Try to live as long as possible." Jin said as he felt his consciousness damped after Zeru's forceful takeover, rescinding to the back.
As the plates formed correctly, Moloch stood there, finally feeling the flames which burnt his master's life bit by bit away. Thanks to his own demon attribute, he had some fire resistance attribute enhanced onto the black and red living armour plates, but it was not enough to counter the dark flames from Baal.
"Ani! Ototo! At my behest! Come!" Moloch shouted, and suddenly two coloured pauldron plates came flying from the System Driver and attached themselves to Moloch's existing shoulder armour. After learning that Pei had managed to recruit them, he was dying to try out this combination, and he was delighted when it worked out as perfectly as he imagined it to. The Living Armour proceeded to cover them and swiftly, the flames were dying out from their appearance.
"MILORD! THAT HURTS YOU KNOW!"
"i cannot deny and only concur that my brother is right. that really hurts. please hurry with whatever you want to do as we won't be able to endure this for long."
"At the very least, you two stopped it." Moloch praised the Pauldrons as he swung the berserk sword a little, noticing that it became heavier and oppressive than Jin's body was aware of. As the other two monsters were considered as 'leeching parasitic' armour, it fused with Jin nicely. His body armour also did feel very comfortable to be in. (Also, the plate armour on the System Rider was so stylish that Moloch was proud and envied Jin for having such a fantastic device with him.)
"WE CAN ONLY DO IT ONCE! HURRY!" Ototo reminded Moloch where he was, and the Minotaur Lord nervously chuckled. The two brothers had been part of his bodyguard entourage, and they were famous for their combination technique that could create an anti-magic field to remove any spell no matter how strong it was.
This technique was also the reason why the Minotaur brothers had been feared and later on why they were permanently polymorphed by King Baal previously.
King Baal did not know whether the human had discovered the weakness of his armour or if it was just a desperate but very lucky strike. But one thing was for sure, no more mistakes could be allowed especially against Moloch who had now seemingly fused with the human.
"You are not even a sword user, to begin with!" Baal shouted as his bastard sword was burning with flames, and as Moloch clashed against the Hell Knight King, he felt the weight of the impact from the bastard sword. It was intense enough to cause the ground to crack from every blow and gave way to the rider's boots. Not only that, the enchanted flames instantly burnt him.
Even though Ani and Ototo were covering his flaw of being incompetent with swords by simultaneously controlling his arms, they did not expect such overwhelming odds from Baal himself. Moloch also believed that if it was a normal high grade sword, it should have broken or at least got chipped long ago, allowing Baal to slice him into two despite being armoured.
"Hard work eh, Masamune?" Moloch asked as he started chanting and cards subsequently appeared behind Baal. Yet the Hell Knight King was not oblivious about his former advisor's way of fighting and swung his free hand around to shoot at the cards.
"Too bad, I have decades of magical power imbued into this crown. You do not have a chance at all Moloch. Just lose this place to me, and your death will be swift!" Baal ordered.
"Heh, to think you would show me mercy after what we had revealed between each other? Is it on the account that we used to be friends in Hell? Or are you just desperately in need of returning back home?!" Moloch then shouted a magical word and those cards that had seemingly been burnt by Baal's magic swiftly reappeared and flew towards the wound he had incurred from Jin previously.
Upon impact, it exploded, again and again, using his own magic against him. King Baal had no choice but to move backwards and tried to reorganise his thoughts from the sudden attack. "You are not the only one to have picked up a few new tricks, 'old friend'!" Moloch taunted as he tried to remain afoot after the immense pressure and burns he received from Baal.
Those cards were actually absorption cards meant to take in the enemy's magic and deflect them whenever at will. However, Baal's infected hell magic was too strong to contain for long despite the strengthening of the cards via Maqi. And thus System Rider Moloch quickly took the opportunity to hit Baal's weak spot.
For the second time, he was bleeding visibly, and Masamune cried louder than ever. Without any permission, it slipped out of Moloch's hand and went straight for the wound. "Shit! I think it is addicted to the crown's energy!" Moloch thought, but there was no way he could stop an insane sword from moving its own.
"Impudent for a sword to have a will of its own!" Baal shouted as he wanted to deflect the sword away, but in a split moment, the blunt sword managed to cut through his bastard sword and stab him through the side of the waist where the most profound bleeding was.
"What!" Moloch could not help but feel aghast at the situation. Did King Baal lose to a living hungry sword? Masamune continued to stick on him, refusing to move at all.
"Weird, this is the first time I see Masamune look so worked up," Gaeru informed him through the System Channel as he was not able to teleport into the sacred arena. Moloch grinned for a moment before he conjured a card up with a broad axe picture in it.
"Impossible! How is this sword taking my powers away?!" King Baal raged as he tried to pull Masamune out of his body. He even self immolated, hoping the sword would burn in the thousands degrees heat.
Still, the sword was not budging a single bit continuing its feast.
With Baal distracted, Moloch proceeded to move towards the Hell Knight King with his axe, Armads, the Axe of Hell's Thunder. Unfortunately, it was not real as the axe was conjured similar to what he had possessed in Hell with the aid of Bam and Boo. The authentic relic was still kept within the Hell Plane, and thus Moloch could only settle for this. Without the System's aid and Living Armour, the Minotaur Lord might not have been able to create this.
"If you want to have my blood, then allow me to command you!" Baal shouted as he conjured even more strength out from the crown and placed it on the hilt. To Moloch's surprise, the sword compiled to its hunger for more power as it allowed Baal to draw it out of his wound and defend the miraculous thunder strike from Moloch's replica weapon.
Baal laughed as he saw how easily the sword changed owners and defended him. At the same time, he used the time to close the side deep wound he incurred from the sword. Moloch had no chance to win against the power-hungry sword, and Gaeru became extremely quiet throughout the change of owners.
"This is really an unexpected turn of events." Jin had regained some consciousness from the short little rest he got. "I honestly can not keep up with who betrayed who at this rate."
"Ha Ha. Very funny master. At this rate, we are the ones who are going to lose!" Moloch reminded Jin as he held tightly on Armads. King Baal realised how much of an advantage he had right now. With his new sword, wretched crown and the infused three form he had embraced to take advantage of all the traits of his crossbreed nature, he felt all powerful.
"There is a brilliant sword. I will finish you once and for all!" King Baal announced as he dashed forward and with the power hungry Masamune, he fed even more energy to it and saw the blade itself shimmer with bluish heat.
He had never seen such a high concentration of energy being stored in the blade as if this was the perfect blade for him bestowed to him. "Begone! and thank you for the sword!" King Baal shouted as he burst dash, closing the distance between System Rider Moloch and him.
Moloch saw the incoming attack and knew there was no way it was able to defend it. "Sorry Master, you'll have to continue this fight yourself… Disengage!" The Minotaur Lord shouted as his half mask popped out of the System Rider Helmet and a manifestation of his cotton toy appeared along with the Minotaur half mask.
"Break Polymorph!" Moloch shouted as he already had a card at his side. King Baal's so-called permanent polymorph was something Moloch had already broken in the early days when he was exiled, but he never used it, as it was a way to conserve energy for himself too. He knew one day, he had to fight against Baal and his ridiculous amount of magic preserved in that crown.
However, he did not know that he was going to use it as defence rather than offence.
"MILORD!" Ototo shouted and immediately disengaged himself from the System Rider. Ani also knew that this was the time to serve his lord. Moloch grew from the cotton toy he was trapped in into a bona fide minotaur. Both Ototo and Ani instantly appeared in front of Moloch, not as pauldrons but two red and yellow tower shields.
Despite their staunchest defence, Masamune cut the two of them easily, but it gave Moloch enough time to accumulate his strength as he held his clasped hands and slammed it forward. Baal smirked as he knew that the attack would be useless with his brand new sword. True enough, Masamune sliced Moloch's arms cleanly, but the Minotaur Lord was not done.
In fact, the arm slam was a feint for his real attack coming from his bull charge via his horns. Bustling his muscles with thunder, he slammed Baal right in the chest and lightning struck his metal plates. Unknown to Moloch, Slydra who was bored conquering the floating islands with her zaps of thunder, had felt the sensation of a lightning user.
"Playing cheat does feel good once in a while." Slydra and Ayse grinned as they were to ones to secretly support Moloch, increasing the strength of this thunder strike by three-fold. Baal was none the wiser and received a blow strong enough to cause him to be knocked back.
Moloch, on the other hand, realised that Masamune was stuck in his heart.
"…This greedy sword. I am taking you with me so you will not interfere." Moloch coughed as he magically took a card out and entrapped the bloodthirsty sword inside it. But before he could pick the card up from the ground, he started to turn into fragment pieces from the overuse of his magic. "This should atone for my mistake of handing it over, Master."
In the meantime, Jin got hold of his body, and the living armour plates shifted back to Panda form. There was no time to feel lost despite Moloch's sacrifice. It was important to press on though Jin's legs were not moving. The System also indicated that the living armour most likely could only hold one last transformation before the System Driver ran out of juice.
"Can't we just feed more black sludge crystals?" Jin barely held together his form and realised he too was at his limit. "We have to stall him as long as possible so the others could take hold of the dungeon keys."
"Negative. Unfortunately, the System Driver is near its breaking point. It is still a prototype and not some indestructible device. Excess usage will cause the device to disintegrate. Not to mention the toll on User has already surpassed the worst-case scenarios. Once this is done, you will have to rest until your vitals are checked, and we can be sure no long term damage has occurred."
"I cannot believe this fight dragged so long." Baal placed his left feet proper to stand up, but he realised the strain from using the crown was starting to get too much. Suddenly, the wretched crown started to light up, and Kiva's family jewel vibrated.
"Shit, no!" Baal didn't know that the invasion had been so long that it was a new day for the demons. As for Baal, he had to go through a 'sanity check' by the crown, and he knew he was in no condition to survive it. His mental will and physical body were severely beaten since he had been relying on the crown's energy to regenerate.
As if the crown was waiting for this chance, it took the opportunity to consume Baal in his latest form, and his entire brain suddenly blacked out.
"Warning, a sudden surge of energy arising from King Baal." The System noted, and Jin saw that the crown shone a purplish light that made him feel like he had seen the face of true evil for the first time. The metal crown subsequently merged with the helmet as it tightened its grip over Baal's head and his body stiffened.
Suddenly, his legs changed shape, and stuff suddenly grew out of the armour greaves and boots Baal was wearing. Three Spider Legs emerged from the original pair of legs, and his hands morphed into webbed hands along with the armour. Not to mention those hands had cat claws emerging from them. Baal's armour slowly popped cat, human and frog eyes surrounding the entire armour.
The worse of all, the crown was emanating cries, weeps, and even screams. Those pleas of help got into Jin's head and he too felt his mind became heavier. It felt like …the victims who King Baal had taken his energy from was asking for mercy. They were shouting desperately to be out of the crown and that itself was trying to take over the Hell Knight King.
"What is happening to me?!" Three slightly various shouts came out from his mouth simultaneously, and the helmet grew a mouth as if it merged with the human face Baal once had. Teeth were shown out when he shouted, and double drooling frog tongues were seen hanging out. As if it was not scary enough of an appearance, his entire armour had been imprinted with scared faces from the people entrapped within the jewel.
"It seems that the crown had infected him further, causing him to mutate beyond recognition. Truly a monster." Jin gave his interpretation as he could feel the wretched crown energy overflowing out. "Is there a Bellator Peppers card that I can draw from the deck?" Jin asked the System, trying his luck.
"Negative. Moloch did not have the power to draw it. The System too believed it is too dangerous for Jin's current grade. The current infusion via the Astral Body is the only way." The System said, and Jin shook his head slightly.
"Well, yeah. Just asking. In any case, there is no way eight seconds of Pepper's explosion could work on this guy without it taking me out as well in this relatively small arena." Jin said.
"8.5 seconds as User is currently at Grade 8 Peak. Still, System also predict that is insufficient-"
"I know, idiot!" Jin said as he stepped forward as he called out Bam and Boo which were in a way damaged after Masamune went crazy and broke out from their temporary combination.
"Sorry about that, Bam and Boo. Did not mean to have it broken." Jin apologised as he combined them both together to have one Katana out. It seemed as if he had no way out but to defeat it as the creature in front of him spasmed.
Suddenly spikes in the shape of cat claws came flying from above and beneath the ground, piercing Jin without any notice. There were no portals or anything as if they materialised from thin air. "What the fuck?!"
The spikes pierced through Jin's living armour defences, into his thighs, arms and even torso, causing Jin to cough out blood internally as the impact was great enough for it to happen. There was a spike that was aimed for his head, but somehow Jin managed to evade it partially(whether by luck or innate instinct, causing it to only destroy a portion of the helmet and missing the face entirely. The cat claw spikes suddenly disappeared once it did its job and Jin was left on the ground bleeding.
"Y—ou wait! I– will finish you after I clear your comrades!" The long slurring from Baal made it seem as if he had trouble controlling his own speech, but if the System were to categorise it, it was infused with three different sounds as heard from his previous sentence.
Despite losing the sanity check, Baal was still conscious enough to put his Dungeon Core as a priority. Concerned about losing it, he immediately opened the portal, and the Pandapolis Dungeon Core reluctantly granted Baal the initial deal. Since Jin was still breathing desperately and without intervention was most likely going to die, making it lose either way.
Fortunately, despite the several injuries, Jin still had the legendary inscription from his general storekeeper, Octofussy to keep him alive. Not to mention his body had been tempered, granting him vampiric traits resulting in a boost of vitality without the urge to bite anyone. Baal who was busy keeping his remaining sanity in check, did not notice any of this and only wanted to pass through the gate.
However, instead of him passing through the gate. There were ten figures coming out of it instead. "Woah, what kind of fucking ugly creature is this?" Kraft asked as he was taken aback for a moment before walking with a bloodied sack over his shoulders.
"Eh? Isn't this the System's portal? Why were we teleported to this wasteland?" Kiyu asked as she walked through it while twirling the ring that held the key from the circle of Heresy.
"Kiyu, be careful with the key. You aren't the most graceful of all foxes." Kai pointed out, and Kiyu merely turned her head to stick her tongue at him.
"Is that Jin?!" Pei, who came out, felt the person's aura lying in a pool of blood to be very familiar. She quickly ran to him, ignoring the monster in front of her. The monster felt offended and decided to pierce her, but it suddenly stopped moving as it noticed a strange smell in the air, temporarily making him lose function over his muscles.
"Do not tell me this monster is Baal?" Evon took a step back, as he noticed that the aura it oozed was not delectable a single bit.
"Wow, the wounds on Jin are really terrible. It's kind of a miracle he is surviving." Ixa was quite blunt about their master's current state as the rest of the foxes in their human forms started to surround Jin.
"This is not how I expected my first encounter with our new master to be." Rex sighed as he supported Pei in healing Jin despite his innate healing abilities.
Baal eventually managed to break out of Evon's paralysing drug effect and noticed that each and almost every one of them who came out were holding the keys to his Dungeon Core, except for the one sole key from the circle of Treachery.
"Ew, Baal who the hell gave you this ugly makeover?" Kraft received the confirmation from the System that it was the King itself, corrupted with the energy he had accumulated. "Anyways, here is the head of your kid, Paleman, I believe. I am surprised that despite you trusting him so much, he had no knowledge of bypassing your stupid key system!"
"I still think you should have let me blast the door with my fist, Kraft." Itori complained, but Tsu just shook his head.
"If you did that, you would have more than likely destroyed the Dungeon Core alongside your blast. In that case, all our endeavours would have been pointless!"
"Yeah, it's rather a wasted effort after I found out that the real Circle of Treachery's Guard Supervisor wasn't even present." Rex agreed as he could hear Jin's breathing started to stabilise.
"Is this like the reinforcements?" Jin asked through his broken helmet with a weak muffled voice.
"Nah, not really. Maybe the spectators?" Kraft grinned as he squatted down and whistled at the new suit Jin had donned on. "I believe this was a great suit before it got battered. Yo, System, I hope you plan to let me play around with one of these as well!"
"So, Rex. What are you waiting for? Kill the King so we can get the key…or to have access to the Dungeon Core or whatever." Ixel was getting a little impatient but so was Baal.
He could not believe the individuals in front of him had managed to clear the guard supervisors which no other demons had done in the past few decades. Still, that also meant that they were the perfect specimens to test his new powers after he had been degraded into a monster of power.
"Yeah, Big Brother. This is supposed to be your official comeback. What better way to establish yourself than to claim the juiciest piece of meat of this whole conquest. Speaking of that, once you are done, we can finally eat, drink and celebrate." Kraft said, and he tapped firmly on Rex's shoulder.
"There's still a part 2 of my comeback?" Rex laughed bitterly as he knew Kraft just wanted to get even for the drinking bet they had centuries ago.
"Haha, but still isn't this –" Suddenly a barrage of magic lasers came from Baal's eyes on the armour and Rex had already put up a barrier against it.
"This monster needs to learn some manners." Rex eyed Baal who now opened his mouth, and a beam of wretched purple energy was shot against his barrier.
"Itori, hold your fist! This is my fight!" Rex ordered as he noticed the White Fox was dying for a counterattack when Baal shot into the barrier. Itori quietly obeyed the new Panda Remnant as he walked forward.
"Master Jin…Do you mind if I kill him? I will make short work of him." Rex asked as he saw Baal desperately trying to break the invisible magical barrier that Rex had put up. No matter how much magical energy from the crown was dispensed against Rex's barrier, it was like a fly hitting on a closed glass window.
"Be my guest. We need to finish him off anyways to end the war. Thanks in advance." Jin answered as he was held up by Pei.
"Kiyu, do you want to have the honours of filming him?" Kraft suggested to Rex as he got permission from his new master.
"I am already on it," Kiyu said, equipped with a selfie stick and a GoPro on. Rex merely smiled as the rest of his skulk stood behind watching him.
"Guess I got to do something flashy. How about I show one of the ancient Panda Techniques?" Rex smiled as he went to a stance…and realised the sword he had already been destroyed from killing the fake bosses in the Circle of Treachery.
"Ah…can someone lend me a sword?" Rex asked embarrassingly, and the foxes tried their best to hold their laughter in.
Kraft too looked down in order not to laugh at his brother, then noticed that there was a card with a sword picture on the ground. "Isn't this Masamune? Why is it in Moloch's card?" Kraft thought to himself as he broke the card's spell by inserting his own chi and Masamune popped out of it.
"Ahh…now I understand why." Kraft smiled as he took in all of the oozing chaos energy from Masamune, and allowed it to not go berserk. "Come on Masamune, there is tastier energy than that," Kraft whispered to it as he subsequently called out to his brother.
Rex received the sword that Kraft threw at him, ignoring Baal's constant all out barrages. "This sword…it's a bloodthirsty living weapon?"
"It's one of Jin's minion's prized items. I doubt he will mind you using it and I believe this weapon suits you well since you are still raging from within." Kraft assumed this could be the outlet that Rex needed while keeping control of his powers. "Most importantly, I do not think it will break."
"Haha, I bet that sword will feel satisfied for some time before it gets hungry again," Ixel interjected, and Rex smiled lightly.
"Alright, then. Judging from this monster's attack power, he is most probably Grade 14 Peak or perhaps an inch away from Grade 15. No wonder Master had a lot of problems fighting it when he's only a Grade 8 Peak. Without the strange chaos energy, he should fall between Grade 11 to 13." Rex calmly analysed the situation while pondering which Sword Art he should show based on the monster's grade as he held onto the sword and adjusted his stance once more.
"Epic Sword Art, Fatal Crescent Circle of the Umbral Panda!" Rex said in a calm voice as he zoomed past Baal and Jin could see a faint image of the moon cycle with a Panda rolling within it as the New Moon turned into a crescent and eventually a full moon. It later went back to a new moon once more, completing the moon cycle. With each transition of the moon's holographic image, Baal was slashed multiple times in the shape of said moon period.
Blood spewed everywhere when the Sword Art ended, but at some point, Rex had put up a barrier to prevent any of Baal's stained blood from dirtying his clothes. It was also relief that he did that too since the blood itself was acidic enough to burn the ground when it landed.
The crown Baal wore finally broke from Rex's sword art, and Baal fell from the attack. It was later revealed that the ravenous lord's jewel was hiding the final prison core from within it and it cracked when the crown was undone.
"How the hell can the prison core be sustained outside of its own instance?" Kraft who had some knowledge on the Dungeon Core felt mystified by it.
"Who knows, maybe that is why he is suffering in his own prison cage." Pei offered a plausible explanation as Rex opened the prison core to reveal the last dungeon key.
"At the very least, he should return to normal once the System resurrects him, right?" Rex asked when he returned Masamune back to Kraft. While it was easy to handle, it did not feel right for him to use it. Kraft could only feel for the weapon, knowing that it had to settle for an imperfect master.
Suddenly, the barriers between the sacred arena were lowered, and the Dungeon Core had determined that the initial deal Baal made had been completed. Ten minutes had passed since the opening of the portal, and he had not crossed any swords against Jin. "Wow, this Dungeon Core sure is scheming. It used this time out as a loophole to let the Foxes fight him." Jin thought since he was the only one who knew the whole picture.
"Isn't that great? We do not need a stupid Dungeon Core to run our city! A scheming city means a prosperous one!" Kraft laughed, and the rest only smiled half-heartedly from it.
"Go, all of you, back to the Dungeon Core. Unlock it and take the Demon Metropolis by force. We need to recoup our losses from this fight." Jin told them, and the whole fox skulk agreed to it. With Baal's portal still opened, all of them immediately went in while an area wide announcement was projected throughout the city.
"Owner of Demon Metropolis, King Baal has officially lost the duel. All Demon Horde personnel shall be teleported out of the Pandapolis in ten seconds." The Pandapolis Dungeon Core announced, and the entire Demon Horde who had to fight with their lives could not believe it…except for the spectators at the safe zone who had seen everything first hand. (If they had survived Syldra's electrifying wink spell.)
The monsters under Jin and Pandarens then realised this was the final sprint to kill everything in their path. More demons killed equated to better rewards for the Pandarens while the monsters might potentially be awarded more System points.
The adrenaline was real as the monsters were using their best skills to finish any demons within their vicinity. Some of the Fortress Golems even started to jump out of their posts and squashed some Demons while emptying their clips of ammo. The Wyvern Knights leapt down from their wyverns and fought independently to get double kills. Pandjilla climbed onto the indestructible sky bridge and sent out an astonishing breath of energy, burning rows of demon soldiers to their death. Many more crazy stunts were done to make that remaining ten seconds count.
Meanwhile, when the foxes took the portal, they tried to drag Jin along with them too. While it was tempting for the foxes, especially Kraft, to own an entire city for himself… it was too much of a hassle in the long run. They were free-spirited troublemakers, not city overseers.
However, Pei stopped him adamantly, and Kraft decided to go for the next best alternative.
Moloch.
He was not spared from it as the System teleported the newly resurrected cotton toy right into Kraft's hands.
